Bacon's Rebellion

Democracy Thrives in Sunlight

No, Virginia Beach Did NOT Cut Taxes

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by

Bob Rayner
in ,

by Kerry Dougherty 

I don’t normally link to Virginian-Pilot stories. Today is an exception.

Find the fiction in this one: “Virginia Beach Adopts $2.6 Billion Budget, Cutting Taxes and Increasing City Worker Pay.”

Once again, the press joins the city in spreading a fantasy. This time it’s that when the city council lowered the property tax rate from .99 per $100 of assessed value to .97, our magnanimous elected officials “cut” taxes.

I’m calling BS on that.

As John Moss pointed out in his clear-eyed analysis of the budget here yesterday, to actually keep taxes about the same for most Beach residents – given the sharp rise in assessments this year – the city should have lowered the rate to .92.

Not a chance they would do that. Too many festivals and projects to fund!

By reducing the rate by 2 cents, they actually RAISED taxes on almost every single property owner in the city.

Virginia Beach city government has a media relations department. It would be nice if the media challenged the spin now and then.

Want a laugh? Get a load of this from the Pilot story:

“For a resident with a median home value of $388,200, the 2-cent reduction will save $78 a year.”

Yippee!

What the writer doesn’t mention is that that same resident will see a big increase in real estate taxes this year. Especially those with homes worth more than $388,200, which is half of all homes.

Later in the same story, the reporter points out that the city is engaging in its favorite sleight-of-hand: hiking fees. Why the media adopts the city’s misleading language on this is baffling. Fees are taxes. Why not just call them that?

“Fees for water, sewer and curbside recycling will increase. Per month, water will increase by $2.70; sewer by 79 cents; and recycling by $3.05.”

What do you say we do a little arithmetic on these tax hikes: Water bills will go up $32.40 a year, sewer costs will rise $9.48 and recycling’s gonna cost residents an additional $36.60.

Let’s add ‘em all up, shall we? Whaddya know, fees will go up $78.48 a year, wiping out that big $78 real estate tax savings the city is touting.

The vote to hike taxes on struggling Beach residents was 10-1. The only council member to vote against this bloated multi-billion dollar budget was Chris Taylor:

“I don’t think the 2-cent reduction is going to do much for families,” (Chris) Taylor said in an interview with The Virginian-Pilot following the vote. “We could have been more aggressive.”

Chris Taylor could use a few friends. Remember that come November.

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41 responses to “No, Virginia Beach Did NOT Cut Taxes”

  1. Stephen Haner Avatar
    Stephen Haner

    I can remember making those points in stories for the Roanoke Times forty years ago. This is an old and favorite game of politicians.

    1. Dick Hall-Sizemore Avatar
      Dick Hall-Sizemore

      And lobbyists: “The legislature cut our funding.” i.e. the GA did not provide as much additional funding as the governor proposed.

      1. Matt Adams Avatar
        Matt Adams

        And bureaucrats: “The legislature didn’t approve my budget increase request”. i.e. my budget still went up, just not as much as I wanted.

      2. Nancy Naive Avatar
        Nancy Naive

        Thank God we’ve some travel money left to spend by September. Disney World anyone?

  2. Dick Hall-Sizemore Avatar
    Dick Hall-Sizemore

    People, like Kerry, who use a broad brush approach to taxes, ignore a basic fact: costs for governments increase, too. If the Virginia Beach city council were to adopt a budget reflecting the same amount of revenues for next year that it collected this year, there would have been no salary increases for city employees, including police officers, firefighters, and teachers. It would not have been able to add 30 new firefighter positions. In addition, inflation affects governments, as well as individuals. Stuff the city buys, from copy paper to fire hoses, costs more.

    Yes, the city may have been able to reduce its tax rate to $0.92 and keep its real estate property tax revenue about the same as this year and still give employess raises and hire more firefighters, but, to do so, it would have had to make significant cuts in its budget elsewhere. It is incumbent on people like Moss and Dougherty, who complain bitterly about increased taxes, to recommend what they feel should be cut out of the budget, rather than casually refer to “too many festivals and projects.” To be fair, Moss did single out the practice of funding positions that remain unfilled. Now, its Dougherty’s turn.

    1. Stephen Haner Avatar
      Stephen Haner

      When I rail about energy prices, I also have the impact on local, state and federal governments in mind. 🙂 After all, it was while working for a government contractor that I got my education and initiation.

      Four years on the inside, managing the money at a major state agency, had an impact on my attitudes. I try not to exhibit the knee-jerk “spending is bad, government is bad” response common with many Republicans. But I also saw plenty of waste, plenty of employees who were cavalier about spending the taxpayers money. And when you and I finally read this budget in detail, we could compile a long list of items that didn’t use to be paid for out of the GF. Mission creep is strong in this budget.

    2. Eric the half a troll Avatar
      Eric the half a troll

      Better yet, she should run and serve on the city council (if she can get elected)…

      1. Nancy Naive Avatar
        Nancy Naive

        Careful what curse you levy on the good people of VB.

    3. Stephen Haner Avatar
      Stephen Haner

      When I rail about energy prices, I also have the impact on local, state and federal governments in mind. 🙂 After all, it was while working for a government contractor that I got my education and initiation.

      Four years on the inside, managing the money at a major state agency, had an impact on my attitudes. I try not to exhibit the knee-jerk “spending is bad, government is bad” response common with many Republicans. But I also saw plenty of waste, plenty of employees who were cavalier about spending the taxpayers money. And when you and I finally read this budget in detail, we could compile a long list of items that didn’t use to be paid for out of the GF. Mission creep is strong in this budget.

      1. Dick Hall-Sizemore Avatar
        Dick Hall-Sizemore

        I agree. I am sure there are a lot of items that I would think that either are not needed or are overfunded. And I have pointed out some of those items on this blog. People who criticize government spending in general should be willing to say what they would cut out or reduce.

        1. LarrytheG Avatar
          LarrytheG

          that’s it. What do you want cut and how much does it save.

    4. Randy Huffman Avatar
      Randy Huffman

      You raise a valid point, but it’s taxpayer money that is being spent. The burden of justification falls on those who are raising taxes, not on those who are demanding holding the line. Kerry’s argument taxes are being raised quite considerably, clearly more than general inflation, so justify it.

      1. LarrytheG Avatar
        LarrytheG

        There is no requirement to not increase taxes. They produce a budget, hold hearings and stand for election.

        I don’t like taxes any more than anyone else ESPECIALLY when they go up but I feel the same about the price of electricity, gasoline, etc.

        If you look at the auditor of public accounts locality comparison spreadsheet, you’ll see that every single jurisdiction in Va levies taxes. One way to hold a given jurisdiction accountable is how much they spend/tax per capita compared to other jurisdictions.

        Govts provide a budget that lays out what the money is spent for and many of them actually identify which categories went up and in a narrative why.

        If, at the end of the day, one is not satisfied, vote. If enough others agree, changes will be made – and actually are sometimes.

        And they do hold referenda sometimes for new/increased expenditures and people can vote on that.

        This is the way that govt was designed to work.

        How else would we do it?

      2. LarrytheG Avatar
        LarrytheG

        “What do you say we do a little arithmetic on these tax hikes: Water bills will go up $32.40 a year, sewer costs will rise $9.48 and recycling’s gonna cost residents an additional $36.60.

        Let’s add ‘em all up, shall we? Whaddya know, fees will go up $78.48 a year, wiping out that big $78 real estate tax savings the city is touting.”

        water/sewer is not a tax, but a fee, and only on water/sewer users, not all taxpayers.

        It’s your basic anti-tax rant, fact-free.

        1. Randy Huffman Avatar
          Randy Huffman

          You missed the increase in real estate assessments of nearly 30% over three years.

          1. LarrytheG Avatar
            LarrytheG

            Not sure your point. You don’t believe that assessments should be done and be accurate, that assessments in general are wrong?

          2. Randy Huffman Avatar
            Randy Huffman

            Of course, but Kerry’s whole point that you are dissing is that when assessments go up (here 30% over 3 years), tax rates should go down to meet the same budget, then justify increases after that. If assessments went down (and they may down the road), what do you think the Government would be proposing?

      3. Dick Hall-Sizemore Avatar
        Dick Hall-Sizemore

        I am sure that, in the materials presented by the city manager and in the discussions of the council members, there are explanations for how the additional revenue will be used. These would constitute the justification. Now, folks may not agree that those justifications are adequate to support not lowering the tax rate further. If so, they should specify which of the reasons, in their opinion, are not adequate. Do they think the city employees should be getting a smaller raise; money should not be spent on new park, etc.?

        1. Randy Huffman Avatar
          Randy Huffman

          I have no idea what the budget looks like, I live in the Charlottesville area. But we all know Government budgets creep up, someone is always out with their hand out. Of course workers should get a raise.

          A new park? Who knows. I work on a volunteer project here in Cville on a park beatification project. The City provides mulch and we get and plant bushes and flowers and spread the mulch and clear the weeds. To what extent is a city working with residents to get volunteers involved with trail building, parks or whatever. Is the local Government holding the line on spending and trying to solicit community support for projects?

          When I see assessments going up 30% over 3 years, plus population growth also means more taxpayers to fund the new park or school, then that is a red flag.

    5. Sara E. McGuffin Avatar
      Sara E. McGuffin

      Just a point of clarification to Dick’s point about this:
      “If the Virginia Beach city council were to adopt a budget reflecting the same amount of revenues for next year that it collected this year, there would have been no salary increases for city employees, including police officers, firefighters, and teachers. It would not have been able to add 30 new firefighter positions. In addition, inflation affects governments, as well as individuals. Stuff the city buys, from copy paper to fire hoses, costs more.”

      This is both true and not true. Yes, real estate and personal property taxes are the primary drivers of the ability of a locality to pay the bills, including the ability of the locality to weather higher costs for supplies and labor. However, localities also have several streams of revenue that go up with inflation. Meals and beverage taxes, lodging and business license taxes all go up commensurate with inflation and the success of the local businesses. Even if a locality holds the revenue steady from property taxes, if they have an economy with a healthy business or hospitality sector, they should still have significant increases. Everyone always focuses on property taxes as that is what everyone sees and they are the big individual hit.

      Just an FYI from your friendly local government practitioner….

    6. StarboardLift Avatar
      StarboardLift

      If funding is always increased to meet a budget, there is never any pressure for cost containment. Government always paints with a broad brush of black/white. Instead of wailing about cutting jobs, go beat up on your vendors for better prices or give your staff 3.5% increase in pay while moving to high-deductible group health plan. That’s what we have to do in the private sector. Anyone notice the immense wealth that surrounds DC? Contracting seems the fastest path to riches.

  3. Nancy Naive Avatar
    Nancy Naive

    A penny saved is a penny earned — just somebody that we used to know.

    Be grateful, if they could carry a debt…

  4. f/k/a_tmtfairfax Avatar
    f/k/a_tmtfairfax

    Elected officials in Fairfax County used to do this all the time until community groups pointed out that state law classifies any failure to reduce the tax rate to offset increases in assessed valuation. Nasty people, wrecking an out.

    But they can still say “I would love to do X but the Dillon Rule prevents me. Even my old pal, Gerry Connolly used to say “The Dillon Rule prevents us from failing to approve any rezoning request.” But he’s gone on to bigger and better things.

    1. LarrytheG Avatar
      LarrytheG

      Good and bad for Dillon but without Dillon, and it’s requirements to advertise hearings, provide equalized rate info, required property assessments, etc… wouldn’t local govt be even less accountable?

      And property owners do have rights that include being able to develop and again, the State prevents localities from arbitrary and capacious actions against property owners. Rezonings are NOT “required”. They can and do turn down rezonings – but it is very much equal and due process for those seeking to develop.

      The naysayers sometimes strike me as anti-govt itself. I’m not sure what their alternative would be. We have elected govt. We choose who represents us. What needs to change to make it better and more accountable?

  5. LarrytheG Avatar
    LarrytheG

    The vast majority of local taxes go for salaries which go right back into the local economy. Employees deserve raises and population growth requires hiring more people like deputies and fire/rescue, programs like Pre-School and .

    Waste is a legitimate issue but not when arguing a budget IMO – it’s sometimes just being used as a proxy for anti-tax sentiment.

    Compare to water/sewer which are separate and only apply to water/sewer customers , not all taxpayers. They have similar issues with wages, growth, and waste.

    VDOT has “waste” but in the bigger scheme of things VDOT pretty much takes care of business with few lapses IMO.

    There is a way to compare localities in Va for the major expenditure categories… It’s a good way to determine which ones spend money in excess of others if one wants to make that a legitimate Prima facie case – as oppose to just being against govt in general because it collects taxes and spends money, yadda yadda

    1. f/k/a_tmtfairfax Avatar
      f/k/a_tmtfairfax

      But do all employees deserve an across-the-board increase? Shouldn’t positions where it’s hard to attract qualified people get more and those with little turnover get less?

      And then there are duplicate programs. The Feds have more than 200 separate programs funding expansion of broadband access. How much duplication locally?

      1. LarrytheG Avatar
        LarrytheG

        Any more or less than any organization that does this? Easy to require good performance rating to get the raise, no?
        But is this a legitimate budget issue or micromanaging ?

        Yes, there IS duplication but again, this is a separate issue from budget itself unless you want to identify the duplication and costs, etc. Govts do make changes to rein in duplication but to me it makes no sense to claim it’s an issue in any specific budget unless you got the facts.

  6. Nancy Naive Avatar
    Nancy Naive

    A penny saved is a penny earned — just somebody that we used to know.

    Be grateful, if they could carry a debt…

  7. James Kiser Avatar
    James Kiser

    Its a game the deep state plays and many buy into it.

  8. Eric the half a troll Avatar
    Eric the half a troll

    “Fees are taxes. Why not just call them that?”

    Because they aren’t…🤷‍♂️

    1. LarrytheG Avatar
      LarrytheG

      which demonstrates a certain level of “understanding”….. the same folks generally don’t
      do well with HOAs either for the same reasons.

      Some folks just resent governance and taxation as concepts!

      1. Eric the half a troll Avatar
        Eric the half a troll

        If fees are taxes, I paid some pretty high taxes when I went to my dentist the other day!

        1. LarrytheG Avatar
          LarrytheG

          …not holding the line on increases either! And Walmart, jeezy peasy – everytime I get something, they’ve bumped the price. There ought to be “laws”!

    2. Nancy Naive Avatar
      Nancy Naive

      Taxes are, well, tax deductible. Fees are not, generally.

      1. Randy Huffman Avatar
        Randy Huffman

        There are a lot of taxes not deductible.

        1. Nancy Naive Avatar
          Nancy Naive

          Not anymore; you’re right. But I remember Dad collecting boxes of receipts, sorted, stapled, and totaled for any tax to put on his Sched A. My guess it was people like him that caused the IRS rule changes. Under “time is money”, he probably lost money working for 2cents per hour on his Fed taxes.

          1. Randy Huffman Avatar
            Randy Huffman

            Our Dads must have been related

          2. Nancy Naive Avatar
            Nancy Naive

            They were, and they were “The Greatest Generation”, too.

          3. LarrytheG Avatar
            LarrytheG

            In doing volunteer taxes, we see people all the time who bring in their tax receipts as well church donations, not realizing that unless they have big mortgages and/or big medical bills, they’re not deductible. They also do not understand the difference between refundable and non-refundable credits. Not just older people, younger folks also.

  9. Theron Keller Avatar
    Theron Keller

    Is Virginia Beach in compliance with the LAW on their notifications, which must state the equalized tax rate and the effective increase?

    https://law.lis.virginia.gov/vacode/title58.1/chapter32/section58.1-3330/

  10. LarrytheG Avatar
    LarrytheG

    What might be an interesting statistic would be the per capita local tax burden for Virginia cities and counties.

    I think the data needed to generate that stat does exist in the local comparison data at the Va Auditor of Public Accounts. Someone good with spreadsheets (I’m not) could, in theory, add a column or spawn a separate with the appropriate algorithm. It could even address the separate categories like schools or sheriff, fire/ems. Doing so, could identify not only the higher cost counties but the lower costs ones, plus a mean and average.

    Someone good at spreadsheets and good at writing a blog post! Would be just like old times at BR! 😉

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